“But you said there was another family who had
offered you an advanced rent. I shouldn’t
like to interfere with them. Besides, I have already
hired a house of Mr. Harrison in the next block.”

Mr. Colman was silenced. He regretted too late
the hasty course which had lost him a good tenant.
The family referred to had no existence; and, it may
be remarked, the house remained vacant for several
months, when he was glad to rent it at the old price.

CHAPTER VIII

A LUCKY RESCUE

The opportune arrival of the child inaugurated a season
of comparative prosperity in the home of Timothy Harding.
To persons accustomed to live in their frugal way,
five hundred dollars seemed a fortune. Nor, as
might have happened in some cases, did this unexpected
windfall tempt the cooper or his wife to enter upon
a more extravagant mode of living.

“Let us save something against a rainy day,”
said Mrs. Harding.

“We can if I get work soon,” answered
her husband. “This little one will add
but little to our expenses, and there is no reason
why we shouldn’t save up at least half of it.”

“So I think, Timothy. The child’s
food will not amount to a dollar a week.”

“There’s no tellin’ when you will
get work, Timothy,” said Rachel, in her usual
cheerful way. “It isn’t well to crow
before you are out of the woods.”

“Very true, Rachel. It isn’t your
failing to look too much at the sunny side of the
picture.”

“I’m ready to look at it when I can see
it anywhere,” answered his sister, in the same
enlivening way.

“Don’t you see it in the unexpected good
fortune which came with this child?” asked Timothy.

“I’ve no doubt you think it very fortunate
now,” said Rachel, gloomily; “but a young
child’s a great deal of trouble.”

“Do you speak from experience, Aunt Rachel?”
asked Jack.

“Yes,” said his aunt, slowly. “If
all babies were as cross and ill-behaved as you were
when you were an infant, five hundred dollars wouldn’t
begin to pay for the trouble of having them around.”

Mr. Harding and his wife laughed at the manner in
which the tables had been turned upon Jack, but the
latter had his wits about him sufficiently to answer:
“I’ve always heard, Aunt Rachel, that the
crosser a child is, the pleasanter he will grow up.
What a very pleasant baby you must have been!”

“Jack!” said his mother, reprovingly;
but his father, who looked upon it as a good joke,
remarked, good-humoredly: “He’s got
you there, Rachel.”

But Rachel took it as a serious matter, and observed
that, when she was young, children were not allowed
to speak so to their elders.

“But I don’t know as I can blame ’em
much,” she continued, wiping her eyes with the
corner of her apron, “when their own parents
encourage ’em in it.”